This is a testimony from our sister Paige in lieu of the 40 days prayer and fasting both for the country and for our own needs with the book "Give me 40 days" by Freeda Bowers.

Each of us can share our testimonies as a praise and glory to God as He answers our needs even without us having to pray for ourselves.

God is good!


1) Prayer: Let people that do not yet know you, know you, Lord. So that they can have a relationship with You, Father, that they will know the truth, for the truth shall set them free.

God answered: In a very dramatic manner.

During class (Masters course), one of my lecturers in my University shared that he goes through suffering & anguish to find meaning in life.

And as I just wrote an assignment earlier about how God has given me meaning & purpose in life, I was very moved to want to share the gospel with him.

That night, I couldn’t sleep, so I went out of my balcony (16th floor apartment) to pray. As I asked God to confirm that “Do u really want me to share my faith to him, God? And if yes, can u show me a sign?” (Since there are Biblical precedents of God showing signs of confirmation).

His response was sending lightning bolt in front of me. (Around 2km away there was a thunderstorm). I thought “Wow…. God answering.. But, perhaps it’s just coincidence.”

So I asked God again, “Really meh?” Immediately there was another lightning in the storm. I waited for a longer period to see if there are more lightning bolts. But there was none. After a few minutes, I asked God for the third time, “Really, really meh?” And immediately there was another thunder bolt.

The three times was enough confirmation for me. So I said to God, that “OK, I will obey then..”

So the plan is to write a letter to him, sharing my faith, will include my Personal Testimony story – of how I became a Christian (which I prepared earlier). And then pass it to him soon.

Hopefully, this will plant a seed in him, that he would want to know more about this great God that loves us as a heavenly Father and in the end, accept God into his life.


2) Prayer: Teach me God & help me to be able to handle unwanted attention from guys. Specifically to resolve conflict with this church brother.

God answered:
My prayer partners & I was sharing about our prayer needs, as we start the 40 day prayer program. And i advised one of them to do something about her bad relationship with her colleague.

At night, it occurred to me that I can actually apply what I said to my own situation, that I should do the same – do something about my conflict with the church brother, K.

The conflict actually originated from miscommunication, misunderstandings…. And the peacemaker wasn’t helping things, even though he did have good intentions. Things had been dragging for quite some time, to a point that I couldn’t really stand it any more.

And my best friend, Joanne commented that I wasn’t acting very sisterly towards K, which I agree. I felt very bad about it, but I didn’t see what I can do about it to make things better.

That night, as I was praying to God, asking Him what I can do to resolve the conflict, the He prompted me that I should resolve things directly with K, and not go through a middle man / peacemaker.

So I wrote a message to K, saying what I felt about the situation, (that I was offended by certain things that he did), how I saw things and that I hope we can resolve things between us.

After sending the message to him at night, he replied me the next morning – also sharing his view of things and he also apologized if he did anything that offended me. I replied back that I accept his apology, and so the whole conflict was actually resolved, in just a few hours time.

Amazing how direct communication can work. Of course more amazing is how God led me to do the right thing.

I learned a lesson from this experience, is to communicate directly with the person I have conflict with. And also to pray that God reveal to me what way I should use to solve certain issues / problems.


3) Prayer: God, help me to quit smoking.

God answered:
It’s quite a long story, involving a series of events.

Incidentally I also shared this to one of my TARC students, K, as he offered me a cigarette and I declined, saying I just quit a week ago. He asked why, & I told him the story as below:

Beginning – I started smoking 7 years ago. Basically, I was influenced by my first boyfriend, who smoked.

And 6 years ago, I stopped when I became a Christian, because the Bible teaches it is folly to do things to harm one’s body. And our bodies are God’s temple, should be holy and acceptable sacrifices to God. It wasn’t an immediate thing, but took a couple of months when I finally quit smoking.

But, I started smoking again, when I was in Australia in 2004 (4 years ago), where I was studying in Adelaide for one year.

Towards the end of the year, I worked as a fruit picker & stayed at the Backpackers Hostel, where I made friends with this Malaysian guy, Adam. And since he smoked a different type of cigarette, which is a self-made & rolled cigarette, I was tempted to try it.

Perhaps it is my educational background, where science students are taught that “Science is experiment”. And I do agree because if you won’t know how something is until you have tried it.

Of course certain things are too risky and not worth it to experience, such as drugs because it can lead to paralysis, brain and bodily injury and even death.

And when I came back to Malaysia in early 2005, I broke up with my second boyfriend. And through the time of broken-heartedness, I turned to smoking as a way to release my unhappiness and stress.

After that, there was a period of stopping, then starting again. I found it very difficult to really quit, especially since I was quite an ‘expert’ in justification – making excuses or giving reasons for why it is ok to smoke.

My reasoning was since I have learned in Psychology that stress can harm the body in a very serious way; and smoking helps me to release stress, and since I don’t some that much (on average 1-2 cigarettes a day), it should be ok lar..

And though I know there are other ways to release stress, such as exercise, play computer games, listening to music,…. Smoking does have its attractions/ benefits, such as a feeling of high similar to when drinking alcohol.

And this continued until few months back when Pastor Colin Hurt from UK came to give a 3 day lesson on “Spiritual Warfare” in my church (SIB).

And as he preached about how we should not give the Devil a foothold (e.g. by sinning) because then He will be able to attack us and defeat us very easily; I was convicted to ask him personally for advice how I can kick this habit.

I have analysed my problem – which is basically I don’t really have the conviction that it is actually wrong to smoke. Yes, in the long run, it will very likely lead to lung cancer, but……

And after sharing this with him, his reply to me was very simple – to ask God whether it is right or wrong to smoke. So simple meh??

Ok, so I went home & prayed to God asking Him to tell me whether it is right or wrong to smoke.
God replied me by me getting eye infection after smoking one day, which is my habit to do after working out at my gym. My right eye got red, and later was uncomfortable / painful for a few days.

Finally I called my pharmacist friend for consultation – and she concluded that I had bacterial infection. So I got antibiotics medication for my eye.

But on the 3rd day, the last day of the medication, the pain / discomfort in the eye was healed, but unfortunately the new problem now was my right eyelid was swollen.

The first pharmacist I went to diagnosed it as allergy. And since I do have seafood allergy and I actually forgot to abstain and ate some prawns few days ago, I thought that should be the cause of the problem.

However after a few days, the swelling did not subside, but became bigger and I could actually see pus in it already.

So I went to another pharmacist, which diagnosed the problem as bacterial infection in the eyelid, and prescribed my ointment to apply on it. So the infection actually moved from the eye to the eyelid.

It was quite painful and quite scary, because the eye is quite a sensitive area. But thank God for Joshua, bcos as we chatted on Facebook, he taught me that I needed to use a needle to poke into the swelling and press out the pus.

Initially I was quite reluctant, cos it is quite gross, and also fearful maybe if I poke myself wrongly, I may even blind myself or something…

But in the end, cos I couldn’t “tahan” (stand) it anymore, the swelling was sorta purplish in color then…. Desperate situations require desperate measures…

So I did as he said, since his dad is a doctor, he should be quite reliable geh…. It took a couple of days of pressing to remove the pus… Quite painful…. And the swelling got smaller to finally disappear… Wow… such a relief…

So I learned that it is wrong to smoke. Because it led to eye infection in my case. And of course long term, it is very likely to lead to lung cancer or other types of cancer….

And adding to that, my current financial crisis, caused by repairs to my car coming up to RM1400 also discourages me from smoking….

Perhaps this is also teaches me to rely on God to provide for my financial needs..

Well, my prayer request for better financial situation hasn’t been answered by God yet…. Perhaps He is looking at the long-term effect, rather than short-term one… Let me struggle for now for a short moment so that I can finally quit smoking for good in the future.

Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding

Well, just trust God and hopes that everything will work out well, according to His good plans lar..


4) Prayer: To find an area to serve in church, outside cell.

God answered:
I went for the first meeting / briefing on SHINE program. It is a community program to teach young girls Worth, Strength & Purpose, which is still in the planning stage.

Amazing is the week after that (the next day actually), I was marking my TARC students assignments, for the subject “Introduction to Psychology”, and the topics for 2 of the questions (Identity & Self-Esteem) were related to SHINE program.

So I was convicted to photostat some of the good assignments, after asking permission from my students and pass it to the Person-in-charge of the program, Gin Kye so that he can read through them. This is because we can actually incorporate these things to the program to make it better.

I also found a journal exploring the relationship between Identity, Self-Esteem and Distress, which I need to read through.

So basically I have found one area to serve in church, through the series of events that happen, according to God’s will and plan. And it’s great that I can put my talents, gifts (qualifications) and interest in Psychology to good use though this.

Additionally, that week, Pastor Lee Choo also asked me to be in-charge of my cell blog (Friends cell), which I was reluctant to do at first.

But as I thought about it, it isn’t really that hard because I don’t have to do everything myself, but can delegate and ask the cell members to contribute, take turns to write & type notes / things to add to the blog.

It would be a blessing to the cell members who are unable to attend the meeting due to their jobs,…. And it can actually be read by people who are pre-believers, where they can learn more about God, His Word, and read the testimonies (real life stories) of the people in the cell.

And even though I am tempted to smoke at times, as the God has promised in the Bible, He will not let me be tempted more than I can bear. So, yeah… just draw strength from God and submit my worries, stress, desires,… to Him..



Thank You God, for answering my prayers!

Paige